Dogpile in the Sale Room

I'm talking about the kind of pile that a dog makes, literally. I work about 5-10 hours a week in a retail store. It was supposed to be a lot more when I was hired, but this recession caused large payroll cuts and therefore if I get scheduled at all in a week's time, I'm quite lucky. Anyway, I was actually called in to the store last night. At one point in the evening, I was running clothes back to the sales room, and it smelled downright nasty. I thought it was coming from the restaurant next door and I made a mental 'note to self' to never eat there. Every time I went into that room I smelled it, so then I was sure it was coming from next door and not from a customer, since the room was clear of bodies. It was awful. Next thing I know, people are scurrying about with paper towels in their hands. Turns out that a customer had brought her little dog into the store to go shopping with her and the dog had an accident. Only...my guess is that he had an accident way before the owner knew of it, or he had more than one accident and the first one went unnoticed. Next thing I know, the dressing rooms are now smelling nasty and people are complaining. Well, guess what...I guess several women unknowingly stepped in the 'accident' and tracked it all through the store. One of the managers found a trail and had to go clean that up, and the whole thing caused a little bit of an uproar for a while. One of the male associates said, "Proves my point; women are willing to step in crap if it means finding a good bargain!" Please, people...could you possibly leave the dogs at home when you go shopping??

Today was my big day.....an interview in the morning, followed by a civil service test in the afternoon. Only, the interview never happened. I guess this winter blast shut down the offices in parts of middle Tennessee, because I drove the 35 minutes to my interview only to find the office lights out and the door locked. No one bothered to call me to tell me not to come, but they surely did not show up. I waited in the parking lot in my car, right outside the office door, for over half an hour. Nothing. Well, so much for that. I still have to learn how much panic a few snowflakes causes around here.

The afternoon's test went well and I scored high, and now I just have to wait to see if anything happens with that. There was quite a crew there today, taking the same test. One man said that he lived near the border of two different counties, could he list both counties in his address? The proctor basically told him to just guess and pick one. It's also amazing how few people actually pay attention to directions. The test proctor read the directions in very clear terms, then went over them again very carefully, and immediately afterward the majority of people (out of about 20, at most) did not follow them at all and were totally clueless about it. For instance, he said several times that we needed certain forms of I.D. for verification purposes, and to place them on the table next to us. Half the people acted quite surprised when he approached their seats and asked for the I.D. Either they ended up not having it with them at all, or they just never took it out of their wallets. This type of thing happened throughout the entire testing period. It was just amazing to me. I looked around the room just a little and thought, "If some of these people showed up at my door for any reason, I'd bolt all the locks and run the other way!" Reminds me of a joke I heard today, completely unrelated, so don't leave comments of anger (dogpiling) and don't feel insulted...just so happened to pop into my head at this moment...but here it is:

Two reasons why it's so hard to solve a Redneck Murder:
1) The DNA all matches,
and
2) There are no dental records

Along those same lines, did you catch American Idol at all last night? You have to feel bad for some of these contestants, especially when their ambition in life is to have nice floors in their house one day (11 years from now, to be exact), preferably marble floors. Well, if that's all it takes to make that one guy happy and content, then that's great. Maybe it'll make up for the fact that he has no chance of a career in music. Makes me wish I could buy his marble floors for him right now.

Hey, I learned a little piece of Nashville history today! Being the newbie that I still am, I was very excited about this -- albeit tragic -- little piece of history. The worst passenger train accident in U.S. history occurred in Nashville in 1918 at Dutchman's Curve, which is located on White Bridge Road near the intersection of Harding Road. More than 100 people died. I always passed the marker on the road but never stopped to read it until today. Very interesting. Also, something else I find interesting and curious -- a couple of days ago, one of those 'sign guys' was standing in front of the Wendy's on White Bridge Road, near the traffic light, holding one of those 'Going Out of Business' signs. He wasn't just standing there holding it, either; he was making a career out of it, a little sideshow. He was spinning it really fast like a propeller. Well, today, all that remained in that very spot was the clothes he was wearing. Seriously...in that same spot, in a pile, was a pair of jeans, a shirt, and some other articles of clothing. Curious....

That's all I have for today, folks. Just let me remind you that these things are the extent of my excitement these days. Dog piles, no-show interviews, imploding sign guys, train wrecks, and redneck jokes. That's all I got. So, until next time...watch where you step, even when you think it couldn't be safer.